The right tackle

At nearly every position, the 49ers have a player on their roster to decently fulfill that role with the exception of returner and right tackle. Returner can be filled relatively easily with a draft pick or even a free agent, but right tackle is a wholly different story and here’s where the 49ers haven’t been active in securing themselves a player.

So far, the team has stated that they will let their draft board speak to them on draft day. But that’s the wrong approach when it comes to tackle. With the rest of the team set and with a crying need in this one position, the 49ers need to eschew the board and get a tackle.

They are hoping that one of the four top tackles (Oklahoma State’s Russell Okung, Iowa’s Bryan Bulaga, Oklahoma’s Trent Williams or Rutgers’s Anthony Davis) is available for them at the 13th choice, however on many mock drafts, they’ve all been picked by then.

On draft day or before, the 49ers might want to use their 17th pick and package it with the 13th in order to move up to get one of the four.

The other option is to gamble and grab Maryland’s Bruce Campbell at 13th or 17th. Campbell was this year’s combine superstar, but his playing time was limited. Many have compared him to former Terp Vernon Davis, but Davis put plenty of productive plays on tape where Campbell has not. The team also has second-round options such as UMass’s Vladmir Ducasse, another gamble of choice who could be available. USC’s Charles Brown also might be there, but several reports say he’s soft.

The draft is really the only place to land a tackle. Yes, another former Terp Jared Gaither is reportedly available for a second-round choice from the Ravens. But the word around the league is that the mammoth Gaither (6-9, 340) doesn’t love the game, rarely works out, and wouldn’t fit into a Mike Singletary-coached team.

Scary, because you hear the same things about Rutgers’s man Davis; he’s the most likely tackle to fall to the 49ers out of the four. This is where Singletary’s ability to assess the human character comes in, and it appears the 49ers have an interest in Davis.

No matter what they do, the 49ers have to get a tackle and if they can’t get one of top four or three, then they should go for quantity over quality and expend a few middle-round picks on tackles. In some fashion they need a player or players to compete with Adam Snyder and the physically re-shaped Alex Boone come training camp.